Top 10 time travellers

Handout, Handout09.26.2012

Time travel is difficult to manage. You have to worry about paradoxes or accidentally killing your grandma or something. It's all very confusing. Things aren't much easier for Joseph Gordon Levitt in Looper. He plays an assassin (or "looper") who's been sent on a hit to kill his future self (Bruce Willis). Why does that punk Marty McFly get to have all the fun?! Check out 10 other fearless time travellers.--Kat Angus and Leah Collins/Postmedia News

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10) Hermione Granger (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004): Near the end of the third Harry Potter movie, when all seems lost, Hermione reveals the ace up her sleeve: she is in possession of a time-turner, which allows her to travel back into the past. Naturally, she’s been using this miraculous bit of hardware to take extra classes for school, and it didn’t occur to her until just this minute that it could be used to, you know, prevent bad things from happening. But better late than never, and Harry, Hermione and Ron go back in time to right some wrongs and save the day! Too bad this “time-turner” is never mentioned again for the rest of the series, even though one would think it would come in super duper handy when battling Voldemort and his evil minions. But, really, the time-turner’s most important function is to allow you to take Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts at the same time.Handout
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9) Austin Powers (The Austin Powers franchise) Secret agent Austin Powers was such a groovy man of mystery that his awesomeness couldn’t be restrained to just one decade. After being cryogenically frozen for 30 years, Austin unleashes his bad teeth, velvet jumpsuits and terrible British accent on the 1990s – but even that wasn’t enough. In The Spy Who Shagged Me and Goldmember, he goes back to the ‘60s and the ‘70s to teach the past about his swingin’ lifestyle. And hey, if he could throw in a few fat jokes and references to various bodily functions, all the better.Handout
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8) Dr. Alexander Hartdegen (The Time Machine, 2002): While there have been plenty of stories about people inadvertently moving through time, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen was probably the first character to build a machine to purposely travel to different eras. But his ability to control his time movements doesn’t make things any easier for him: his own carelessness causes him to travel from 1899 to the year 802,701, where the world is just as screwed up. Humanity has been separated into two levels of society, the kind Eloi and the evil, cave-dwelling Morlocks, who torment the Eloi for their own gain. Yes, even in the distant future, heavy-handed symbolism still runs rampant.Handout
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7) Max Walker (Timecop, 1994): Put the word "time" in front of anything, and it instantly becomes awesome. For example Time-Firefighter, Time-Pony, Time-Dose.ca Staff Writer...and the best example of all: TIMECOP. He's a cop that travels through time, you guys. It's a good thing humanity's tolerance for awesomeness has evolved, because in the primitive days of 1994, that information blew minds. But yes, the plot: it's 2004 and time travel has been perfected. To make sure nobody abuses the new technology -- like hunting for Tyrannosaurus steaks or pulling pranks on Socrates or something -- an organization called the Time Enforcement Commission is formed. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays ace officer Max Walker (he's a TIMECOP!!!), but while tracking down a corrupt politician -- IN TIME!!! -- he realizes the conspiracy is tied to the murder of his wife. More importantly, the movie is called TIMECOP.Handout
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6) Dr. Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap – 1989-1993): Following a botched experiment, Sam (a dreamy, young Scott Bakula) becomes lost in time. For reasons we don’t entirely understand (because of all the science), whenever he jumps, Sam inhabits the body of someone from that era and has to solve all their problems. Every episode was the perfect mix of social commentary and over-the-top schmaltz – with a little bit of comedy thrown in, thanks to the cigar-smoking, wise-cracking Dean Stockwell. Too bad the series finale ended on a bit of a downer, as we found out that Sam kept on jumping through time and never made it home. Never? Not ever? Thanks for making time-travel as depressing as it is impossible.Handout
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5) The Time Traveler’s Wife’s Husband (The Time Traveler's Wife, 2009): Henry (Eric Bana) is pretty much the red-headed stepchild of time lords. Sure he can traverse space and time like the rest of them, but the dude has zero control over where and when he's zapping off to. Adding to the suckage: when he gets there, he's always naked, Terminator-style -- which is no fun, even if you do look like Eric Bana. The problem's so bad, even the dude's baby batter has spontaneous "time travelling" powers -- a detail only slightly less creepy than the fact he meets his future wife when she's a kid...by appearing to her in a field. Naked. Basically the only thing Henry has going for him is that he's married to Rachel McAdams. Now, if only he could find a way to zap himself back to the Honeymoon he missed...Handout
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4) T-800 (The Terminator franchise) - Unless they happen to get stuck in a hydraulic press, Terminators can do just about everything: they can speak with an Austrian accent, live for 120 years (on battery life), withstand gunfire and explosions, give the thumbs-up...and TRAVEL THROUGH TIME. More often than not, they zap to the past so they can attempt "terminating," if you will, John Connor, the young badass who winds up leading the resistance against supercomputer Skynet, thus threatening evil robot-kind. Time travel is strictly business for these guys -- murderous, bullet-riddled business.Handout
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3) Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, 1989) - School is cool, kids -- especially if you've got access to the "circuits of history" like Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves). The best buds are flunking history, and, probably, all of their other classes at San Dimas High. Bogus. And the people of the distant future totally agree. It turns out their utopian society of wacky sunglasses and metallic shoulderpads was inspired by the dudes' band, Wyld Stallyns (*Guitar riffage!*). So, a messenger named Rufus (George Carlin) goes to the past to teach Bill and Ted how to travel through time via phone booth. The objective: Get them to write the most excellent history presentation ever. Rufus probably could have saved himself the trouble by just introducing Bill and Ted to this thing called "The Internet," but then the world would never have been treated to a scene featuring Napoleon gorging himself on a ginormous ice cream sundae. ZIGGY PIGGY! ZIGGY PIGGY!Handout
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2) Marty McFly (Back to the Future franchise) - For a guy whose favourite band is Huey Lewis and the News, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is alright. In the first Back to the Future movie alone he manages to make his parents fall in love, improve the lives of his entire family by messing with the space/time contiuum and invent rock 'n' roll. As for why and how Marty winds up travelling through time, he has Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to thank, an eccentric who turns his Delorean into a time machine. (Something to do with a "flux capacitor"...) As for how the two of them become acquainted, the franchise is never clear on that point. Maybe the Doc promised a younger Marty a hover board if he started hanging out in his garage. It would have worked on us.Handout
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1) The Doctor (Doctor Who): Has there ever been a better time traveller than the Doctor? We’d venture to say no. Come on: “time lord” isn’t just a pretentious title he gave himself while listening to Pink Floyd; it’s the name of his actual race. Not only that, but the Doctor is the only time lord left in the entire universe, and the only thing that mitigates his unending loneliness is travelling time and space in his TARDIS, making friends and fighting aliens. Still not cool enough? How about this: he never dies! No, instead, Doctor Who just regenerates his body, changing his appearance whenever he gets bored. We don’t care how nerdy this declaration makes us, the Doctor is the raddest time traveller of all time. There, we said it.Handout
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